


can you believe it, cas

by novelteas



Category: Supernatural
Genre: :'), Based on a Tumblr Post, Gay Rights, Inspired by Twist and Shout - gabriel & standbyme, M/M, Post-Twist & Shout - gabriel & standbyme, i lov dean :)) he deserves to be happy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-27
Updated: 2016-09-27
Packaged: 2018-08-17 08:45:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8137712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/novelteas/pseuds/novelteas
Summary: June 26, 2015:    US Supreme Court Legalizes Same-Sex Marriage NationwideLGBT pride month culminates with historic 5-4 decision He laughs breathlessly, his heart frozen. The camera focuses on a pair of twenty-something men locked in an embrace with tears running over their young faces. For a split second, he sees Cas's dark tufts and blue eyes in one of the men. He sees himself in the other, crying in disbelief and pride and amazement that nothing can stop them now."We did it, Cas," he whispers, feeling tears sting at his eyes. "Can you believe it? We did it."





	

**Author's Note:**

> aaaaaaaaa ok this is just a little trashy one-shot thing i threw together to keep my chops up please don't kill me also please don't judge me i'm tired and emotional and thinking about twist and shout makes me happy-ish but also sad so you know what just read it
> 
> EDIT AS OF 26 SEP 2016: thanks guys for all ur feedback!! it makes me really happy to know that u guys enjoyed my writing and nothing cheers me up more than seeing ur comments. i read all of them even if i don't reply and i appreciate u all so so much! <3

**June 2015**

Dean Winchester is seventy-one years old. He's never married - not that he could anyway. Sam's retired. Bobby died a few decades ago. Last he heard from Tessa, she's still working in a hospital somewhere in Oregon. Abigail's got a family of her own now, and a grandchild for Sam and Jess on the way. 

It's been thirty-four years and almost three months since Cas died in his arms in that hospital in San Francisco. Thirty-four years since he last heard his voice. Thirty-four years since he last sang along to Elvis. Thirty-four years . . . thirty-four years since he's loved anyone. Since anyone has said _I love you_ to him with the same love and meaning and poignancy that Cas had.

He doesn't dwell on it anymore. He doesn't think about how it's his fault Cas ended up where he was, sleeping around and getting high as a kite to forget how broken his heart was. He doesn't think about how they could have had so much more time - how they _should_ have had so much more time. He doesn't think about how Cas died unable to tell Dean whatever he had to say. He doesn't think about any of it.

Dean Winchester wakes up in the morning and eats breakfast. He looks at the remnants of Vietnam that he still has - Adam's medallion, the stupid crinkled photo of Cas he kept in his helmet. He rifles through the shoebox of letters Cas used to write to him. He writes. He watches television, gets bored, looks out the window, eats lunch. Rinse and repeat.

He turns on the news Friday night, and the last thing he expects on the news is what can only be an outpouring of victory and joy. There are rainbow flags everywhere, rainbow lights on the White House, on the Supreme Court, along the Potomac. His knees are weak, and he sinks into the sofa behind him, licking his lips and blinking slowly. His eyes flicker towards the bottom of the screen, glancing at the headline and its subtitle, and he stops breathing for a moment.

_US Supreme Court Legalizes Same-Sex Marriage Nationwide_  
_LGBT pride month culminates with historic 5-4 decision_

He laughs breathlessly, his heart frozen. 

The camera focuses on a pair of twenty-something men locked in an embrace with tears running over their young faces. For a split second, he sees Cas's dark tufts and blue eyes in one of the men. He sees himself in the other, crying in disbelief and pride and amazement that nothing can stop them now.

"We did it, Cas," he whispers, feeling tears sting at his eyes. "Can you believe it? We did it."

He writes a letter that night.

* * *

_26 June 2015_

_Dear Cas,_

_34 years later, these fools have done it. It's legal now. Doesn't matter where we are, we can get married. Sounds good, huh? It only took them fifty years or so to figure it out._

Dean folds up the letter - a scrap of paper, really - and pockets it. The shoebox with all the others is sitting on his dresser, and he opens it again, trailing his fingers over the yellowing pages of writing and the shells. There's a couple of photos in here too: him and Cas on the beach. He takes them all.

* * *

He's been sitting there, in the same spot on the beach, since five in the morning, unmoving. The letter he wrote two nights ago after the news sits in his pocket, the corners curling with the moisture in the air. There are other people filling the beach now, too, laughing and screaming and splashing. He goes through each of the letters, reading them all with fresh eyes. He fingers a photo Jess took of them, back when he and Cas lived together and laughed and loved each other, back before Vietnam. He smiles and he holds back tears in his watery old eyes.

A sharp breeze takes him by surprise, pulling the photo from his fingers and sending it skidding along the little ridges of sand until it lands in front of a young redhead, who leans forward, picks it up delicately, and looks at Dean.

"This yours?" she calls, shaking grains of sand from her short curls as she holds up the photograph.

"Yeah," Dean replies. "I'm sorry, the wind caught me off-guard."

The girl stands up to bring over the photo. "Is this you?" she asks, holding the photo out to him.

Dean chuckles and nods. She brushes off the backs of her thighs and sits down next to him, pulling her knees up to her chest. "Who's the other one?"

A breath. "My boyfriend."

"You know, you can marry him now," the girl says, placing the photo in the half-open box between them. "I'm going to marry my girlfriend."

Dean laughs, louder this time. "I wish," he says softly. "He, uh - he died. AIDS epidemic."

The girl makes an "oh" of understanding and bites her lip. "I'm sorry." 

"No, it's fine." Dean nods and smiles again. "What's your name?"

"Charlie," she says, holding out her hand. 

Dean meets the handshake. "Dean."

"Who was your boyfriend?"

"His name was Cas," Dean says quietly, looking out at the endless expanse of the sea, searching for their remote little island with the house and dog and picket fence. "Castiel. He could never shut up, and he was a nerd who wanted his medical degree, and he loved Elvis. Like, to a ridiculous extent. He had all the records."

Charlie is silent, listening, so Dean continues. "We met at a party. He was in college, and I - I raced bikes. This old high school girlfriend of mine invited me to the party, and I saw him across the room, and I just - just . . . he was so _smart_. He was everything that I wasn't: smart, and knowledgeable, and unafraid of his family, and - ," Dean trailed off, his eyes drifting to the box of letters. "He was so forgiving."

"What happened?"

"I left him," Dean says, "after Vietnam. I was killing him, you know? He . . . we hadn't seen each other in so long. And I was home and we were together and I still loved him so much but every time I closed my eyes I was in Vietnam, every time . . . every time we went to sleep together I just - I woke up and it was hot and suffocating and humid and just like the forests in 'Nam. And there was this one guy in my platoon - his name was Adam - and he died from friendly fire, one of our own, and whenever I woke up at night and saw Cas in front of me it was . . . it was like seeing Adam in front of me. And I loved him, really, I did. I loved Cas to the ends of the earth. I think the only thing that brought me back from the war alive and intact was - was Cas.

"And then nine years later I get this call from a guy named Gabriel Novak. Says he's Castiel's brother. And he - he says to me, 'Cas is dying.'" There are tears in Dean's eyes again, which is weird, because he never cries anymore. But maybe it's telling the story that actually hurts. He keeps going, anyway. "He says, 'Cas is dying in San Francisco General,' so I haul myself up to San Francisco and I walk into this hospital room belong to Castiel Novak and I don't leave it for weeks, until he dies. And so Cas dies in a world that hates him and all he has there when he dies is this nurse that he's been talking to for months since he was hospitalized and me, the asshole that left him nine years earlier, saying sorry.

"He's been dead for thirty-four years now, and two nights ago the news comes on and tells me we can get married after fifty years of open hate." Dean chuckles again, bitterly. "Good on the Supreme Court." He sighs. "We used to come here, you know."

Charlie looks at him. "This beach?"

"Yeah." Dean leans back against a rock. "We sat here and he read a book. And there, along the water, we collected shells and he told me . . . he told me he loved me." There are tears on his eyelashes now, cold and wet. "He said - he said he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me." He snorts. "Guess it happened, didn't it?"

He looks over at Charlie, and she smiles. She's crying, too. "My girlfriend and I are going to get lunch soon. Do you want to come with us?"

Dean shakes his head. "No thanks," he says. "Think I'm gonna stay here. Read with Cas, maybe."

He stays on the beach. He stays there until it's dark, and he stays there through the freezing night, and he stays there through the whole next day, and the next day, and the day after that.

Three days after he first sat down next to the sandy rocks, Dean Winchester is found dead in the same spot, clutching a box of old wrinkled letters to his chest. His lips are parted just the tiniest bit, on the verge of saying something. The senior investigating officer who arrives after the paramedics catches a fresh piece of paper, half buried in the sand. She unfolds it.

"You need me to bag that, Hester?"

Hester shakes her head.


End file.
